I.R.S. undertakes a security review amid threats to the agency and its employees.

The Inner Income Service, which has been below sustained assault by Republican lawmakers and conservative shops, is endeavor a “complete” overview of its safety amid threats to the tax company and its workers.

In a letter despatched to workers on Tuesday, the I.R.S. commissioner, Charles P. Rettig, cited “an abundance of misinformation and false social media postings, a few of them with threats directed on the I.R.S. and its workers.”

Because of this, the company is conducting a overview of “present security and safety measures” at its operations nationwide and has “elevated engagement” with legislation enforcement and safety companies.

“We’re conscious of those regarding messages, and I need to guarantee you that your security is and can proceed to be my prime precedence,” Mr. Rettig wrote.

The safety overview and letter to workers have been reported earlier by The Washington Submit.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories in regards to the company have proliferated within the wake of a Democrat-backed invoice that offers the tax collector an extra $80 billion to assist crack down on tax cheats. The laws, which President Biden signed into legislation final week, is meant to assist the company rent greater than 80,000 workers, improve antiquated know-how programs and enhance its capacity to answer taxpayers.

Mr. Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen have promised that the extra personnel is not going to lead to elevated scrutiny or audits of anybody making lower than $400,000 per yr.

Ms. Yellen, in a memo final week to Mr. Rettig, mapped out her prime priorities for the company and reiterated that it should deal with wealthy tax dodgers and company tax evasion.

“These investments is not going to lead to households incomes $400,000 per yr or much less or small companies seeing a rise within the probabilities that they’re audited relative to historic ranges,” Ms. Yellen wrote.

However the funding has spawned a bunch of unfounded conspiracy theories — together with from Republican members of Congress — in regards to the risk that mom-and-pop retailers and middle-class Individuals will now face from an emboldened tax collector. Social media is awash in claims that the brand new brokers shall be closely armed, even supposing simply 1 p.c of the brand new workers could be working in jobs that require carrying weapons.

That has not stopped elected members of Congress from fanning spurious claims.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, warned Fox Information viewers this month that the brand new I.R.S. brokers is likely to be coming with loaded “AK-15s” and “able to shoot some small-business particular person in Iowa.”

Different Republican lawmakers have cautioned that extra I.R.S. brokers will lead to extra audits of small-business homeowners and middle-class Individuals, regardless of the administration’s pledge.

Ms. Yellen, writing on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, stated the security of I.R.S. workers is a “prime precedence.”

As The New York Occasions reported final week, the size and pace at which rumors in regards to the company have unfold portend the political and logistical challenges that the Biden administration will confront because it embarks on the largest overhaul of the I.R.S. since its inception.